South Carolina
Man charged with 4 counts of murder in mass shooting at bar
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Authorities have charged a man with murder in a mass shooting that killed four people and injured 15 more last month at a bar on a South Carolina island.
Anferny Freeman, 27, was already in jail on a charge of possessing a machine gun when investigators served arrest warrants on him Friday, Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner said.
About 350 people were at a 25th high school reunion party in the early morning of Oct. 12 when gunfire broke out at Willie’s Bar and Grill on St. Helena Island, deputies said.
Freeman and a man who ended up being killed in the shooting had an encounter “that was not very friendly” and started shooting at each other, Tanner said.
Freeman was shot in the stomach and driven to the hospital, the sheriff said.
Investigators have determined through bullets, shell casings, videos and interviews that there was a third person shooting too, said the sheriff, who expects more arrests.
“I expect more charges to be made. We have not forgotten about the other 15 victims,” Tanner said.
A judge denied bond for Freeman on the four murder charges. Jail and court records did not list a lawyer representing him.
The shooting happened near last call for drinks at a party celebrating the 25th anniversary of the class of 2000 at Battery Creek High School in Beaufort. Tanner said the shooters were firing indiscriminately.
In a news conference several days after the shooting, Tanner said he was frustrated that none of the people at the party were identifying the shooter. He said Friday that they did finally get witnesses to talk and help them make their case.
The sheriff would not say who shot first, what kinds of weapons were used, how Freeman got his gun or how many other people might be charged.
“How all that happened is for a courtroom and not here,” Tanner said.
Willie’s Bar serves Gullah-inspired cuisine and describes itself on its website as “not just a restaurant but a community pillar committed to giving back, especially to our youth.”
An estimated 5,000 or more Gullah people living on St. Helena Island trace their ancestry back to enslaved West Africans who once worked rice plantations in the area before being eventually freed by the Civil War.
Someone affiliated with the business was at Tanner’s news conference Friday and asked him several questions about why the sheriff was trying to get the bar declared a nuisance and closed.
Tanner said deputies have been called out to the business hundreds of times and it is too dangerous to the community to keep its alcohol license.
“The bottom line is we are going to put you out of business,” the sheriff said.
Nevada
State Supreme Court sends ‘fake electors’ case back to county
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — The yearslong case against six Nevada Republicans who were accused of submitting a bogus certificate that falsely declared President Donald Trump the winner of the state’s 2020 presidential election has been sent back to Clark County, where a jury is more likely to rule against them.
The opinion released Thursday from the Nevada Supreme Court reverses an earlier decision from a state judge who dismissed the case after ruling Clark County was the wrong venue for the case because the alleged crimes had occurred elsewhere in the state. Clark County is home to Las Vegas and leans Democratic.
The higher court’s decision to let the case move forward marks a rare win for swing-state efforts to prosecute so-called fake electors who tried to keep Trump in the White House after he lost to Joe Biden in 2020. In Michigan, a judge recently dismissed charges against 15 Republicans who had been charged by that state’s Democratic attorney general, Dana Nessel. The dismissal came after a judge in Arizona sent the fake electors case there back to the grand jury for fuller instructions about what federal law requires.
“Today the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed what we have maintained all along — that Clark County is the proper and lawful venue to prosecute our case, and I am pleased with the court’s decision to overturn the District Court’s dismissal of our case in Clark County,” Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford said in a statement.
Electors declined to comment Thursday.
After the 2020 election, the six electors gathered outside of the Nevada Legislature to sign certificates giving the state’s six electoral votes to Trump, despite former President Joe Biden winning the state by more than 30,000 votes. The ceremony was broadcast online, and the video footage was used as evidence in the case.
Criminal cases were also brought against Republican electors in Michigan, Georgia and Arizona. On Monday, Trump pardoned his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others accused of aiding his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
The defendants have called the case political prosecution. They say they were exercising their First Amendment rights to criticize the state’s election processes.
The six Nevadans, who had pleaded not guilty, include Michael McDonald, the chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, and Jesse Law, the former Clark County Republican Party chairman who was recently ousted in a July election.
A main argument in the case focused on where the alleged crimes occurred. After that ceremony, one of the electors mailed the documents from Douglas County to the archivist of the United States and the president of the Senate in Washington, D.C. It was also sent to the Nevada secretary of state in Carson City and a federal judge in Las Vegas.
Ford argued the case belongs in Clark County because the envelope was sent to Las Vegas, however one of the electors argued that the envelope was redirected to the judge’s chambers in Reno.
The Nevada Supreme Court justices sided unanimously with the attorney general’s office, saying in its Thursday opinion that Nevada law does not preclude a venue from being appropriate in multiple counties for the same offense.
As a precaution, Ford filed a separate case in Carson City in December 2024 to avoid the statute of limitations expiring while the Nevada Supreme Court made its decision. In the Carson City case, he charged the defendants with “uttering a forged instrument.” That case will likely be withdrawn.
Ford, a Democrat, is running for governor in 2026.
Georgia
New prosecutor takes on the election case against Trump and others
ATLANTA (AP) — A longtime prosecutor announced he will take over the Georgia election interference case against President Donald Trump and others, after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was removed from the case and no one else wanted the job.
The nonpartisan Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia was tasked with replacing Willis after she was disqualified over an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she’d chosen to lead the case. The organization’s executive director, Pete Skandalakis, said Friday that he would take the case on himself.
“Several prosecutors were contacted and, while all were respectful and professional, each declined the appointment,” Skandalakis said in an emailed statement.
Legal action against Trump is unlikely to proceed while he is president. However, 14 other defendants still face charges, among them former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani as well as former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
Trump earlier this week announced pardons for people accused of backing his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election — including those charged in Georgia — but Skandalakis has said that has no bearing on these state charges.
After the Georgia Supreme Court in September declined to hear Willis’ appeal of her disqualification, it fell to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council to find a new prosecutor. Skandalakis can continue to follow Willis’ vision for the prosecution, decide to pursue only some charges or dismiss the case altogether.
He said he could have let the deadline pass or told the court no prosecutor was available, which would have led to the case’s dismissal, but he decided that wasn’t “the right course of action.”
“The public has a legitimate interest in the outcome of this case,” he wrote. “Accordingly, it is important that someone make an informed and transparent determination about how best to proceed.”
Skandalakis said Willis’ office delivered 101 boxes of documents on Oct. 29 and an eight-terabyte hard drive with the full investigative file on Nov. 6. Although he hasn’t completed his review, he took on the case so he can finish assessing it and decide what to do next.
Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in Georgia, said he is confident that “fair and impartial review” will lead to a dismissal of the case against his client.
“This politically charged prosecution has to come to an end,” he said in an email.
Allyn Stockton, an attorney for Giuliani, called Skandalakis’ decision an “interesting twist,” but added, “everything I know about Mr. Skandalakis is that he is a fair minded and honorable man who is void of any political agenda.”
A spokesperson for Willis declined to comment, deferring to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council.
Skandalakis, who has led the small, nonpartisan council since 2018, said in his filing that he will get no extra pay for the case, with Fulton County reimbursing expenses. He previously spent about 25 years as the elected Republican district attorney for the Coweta Judicial Circuit, southwest of Atlanta.
“I doubt anything will ever move forward with the president,” Georgia State University law professor Anthony Michael Kreis said, noting that Skandalakis’ appointment is temporary and charges can’t proceed against Trump while he’s in office.
As for the president’s co-defendants, Kreis said the council’s resources are scarce, which “may lead to a simplification of the case or plea deals.”
Willis announced the sprawling indictment against Trump and 18 others in August 2023, using the state’s anti-racketeering law to allege a wide-ranging conspiracy to illegally overturn Trump’s narrow loss to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia.
Defense attorneys sought Willis’ removal after one revealed in January 2024 that Willis had a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she had hired to lead the case. The defense attorneys alleged a conflict of interest and said Willis profited from the case when Wade used his earnings to pay for vacations the pair took.
During an extraordinary hearing the next month, Willis and Wade testified about their relationship’s intimate details, saying the romance didn’t begin until after Wade was hired and that they split the costs for vacations and other outings.
Judge Scott McAfee rebuked Willis for a “tremendous lapse in judgment” but found no disqualifying conflict of interest, ruling she could stay on the case if Wade resigned, which he did hours later.
Defense attorneys appealed, and the Georgia Court of Appeals removed Willis from the case in December 2024, citing an “appearance of impropriety.” The state Supreme Court declined to hear Willis’ appeal.
This is not the first time Skandalakis has been involved in this case. Even before Willis obtained an indictment, a judge barred her from seeking criminal charges against Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, one of 16 state Republicans who signed a certificate that Trump had won Georgia and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
A state senator in the wake of the election, Jones also sought a special legislative session to overturn Biden’s win.
As Willis investigated, Jones argued she had a conflict of interest because she hosted a fundraiser for his Democratic opponent in the lieutenant governor’s race. Judge Robert McBurney ruled in July 2022 that Willis’ actions created an “actual and untenable” conflict of interest.
Skandalakis appointed himself to handle that issue as well and ultimately chose not to pursue charges against Jones.
Man charged with 4 counts of murder in mass shooting at bar
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Authorities have charged a man with murder in a mass shooting that killed four people and injured 15 more last month at a bar on a South Carolina island.
Anferny Freeman, 27, was already in jail on a charge of possessing a machine gun when investigators served arrest warrants on him Friday, Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner said.
About 350 people were at a 25th high school reunion party in the early morning of Oct. 12 when gunfire broke out at Willie’s Bar and Grill on St. Helena Island, deputies said.
Freeman and a man who ended up being killed in the shooting had an encounter “that was not very friendly” and started shooting at each other, Tanner said.
Freeman was shot in the stomach and driven to the hospital, the sheriff said.
Investigators have determined through bullets, shell casings, videos and interviews that there was a third person shooting too, said the sheriff, who expects more arrests.
“I expect more charges to be made. We have not forgotten about the other 15 victims,” Tanner said.
A judge denied bond for Freeman on the four murder charges. Jail and court records did not list a lawyer representing him.
The shooting happened near last call for drinks at a party celebrating the 25th anniversary of the class of 2000 at Battery Creek High School in Beaufort. Tanner said the shooters were firing indiscriminately.
In a news conference several days after the shooting, Tanner said he was frustrated that none of the people at the party were identifying the shooter. He said Friday that they did finally get witnesses to talk and help them make their case.
The sheriff would not say who shot first, what kinds of weapons were used, how Freeman got his gun or how many other people might be charged.
“How all that happened is for a courtroom and not here,” Tanner said.
Willie’s Bar serves Gullah-inspired cuisine and describes itself on its website as “not just a restaurant but a community pillar committed to giving back, especially to our youth.”
An estimated 5,000 or more Gullah people living on St. Helena Island trace their ancestry back to enslaved West Africans who once worked rice plantations in the area before being eventually freed by the Civil War.
Someone affiliated with the business was at Tanner’s news conference Friday and asked him several questions about why the sheriff was trying to get the bar declared a nuisance and closed.
Tanner said deputies have been called out to the business hundreds of times and it is too dangerous to the community to keep its alcohol license.
“The bottom line is we are going to put you out of business,” the sheriff said.
Nevada
State Supreme Court sends ‘fake electors’ case back to county
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — The yearslong case against six Nevada Republicans who were accused of submitting a bogus certificate that falsely declared President Donald Trump the winner of the state’s 2020 presidential election has been sent back to Clark County, where a jury is more likely to rule against them.
The opinion released Thursday from the Nevada Supreme Court reverses an earlier decision from a state judge who dismissed the case after ruling Clark County was the wrong venue for the case because the alleged crimes had occurred elsewhere in the state. Clark County is home to Las Vegas and leans Democratic.
The higher court’s decision to let the case move forward marks a rare win for swing-state efforts to prosecute so-called fake electors who tried to keep Trump in the White House after he lost to Joe Biden in 2020. In Michigan, a judge recently dismissed charges against 15 Republicans who had been charged by that state’s Democratic attorney general, Dana Nessel. The dismissal came after a judge in Arizona sent the fake electors case there back to the grand jury for fuller instructions about what federal law requires.
“Today the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed what we have maintained all along — that Clark County is the proper and lawful venue to prosecute our case, and I am pleased with the court’s decision to overturn the District Court’s dismissal of our case in Clark County,” Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford said in a statement.
Electors declined to comment Thursday.
After the 2020 election, the six electors gathered outside of the Nevada Legislature to sign certificates giving the state’s six electoral votes to Trump, despite former President Joe Biden winning the state by more than 30,000 votes. The ceremony was broadcast online, and the video footage was used as evidence in the case.
Criminal cases were also brought against Republican electors in Michigan, Georgia and Arizona. On Monday, Trump pardoned his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others accused of aiding his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
The defendants have called the case political prosecution. They say they were exercising their First Amendment rights to criticize the state’s election processes.
The six Nevadans, who had pleaded not guilty, include Michael McDonald, the chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, and Jesse Law, the former Clark County Republican Party chairman who was recently ousted in a July election.
A main argument in the case focused on where the alleged crimes occurred. After that ceremony, one of the electors mailed the documents from Douglas County to the archivist of the United States and the president of the Senate in Washington, D.C. It was also sent to the Nevada secretary of state in Carson City and a federal judge in Las Vegas.
Ford argued the case belongs in Clark County because the envelope was sent to Las Vegas, however one of the electors argued that the envelope was redirected to the judge’s chambers in Reno.
The Nevada Supreme Court justices sided unanimously with the attorney general’s office, saying in its Thursday opinion that Nevada law does not preclude a venue from being appropriate in multiple counties for the same offense.
As a precaution, Ford filed a separate case in Carson City in December 2024 to avoid the statute of limitations expiring while the Nevada Supreme Court made its decision. In the Carson City case, he charged the defendants with “uttering a forged instrument.” That case will likely be withdrawn.
Ford, a Democrat, is running for governor in 2026.
Georgia
New prosecutor takes on the election case against Trump and others
ATLANTA (AP) — A longtime prosecutor announced he will take over the Georgia election interference case against President Donald Trump and others, after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was removed from the case and no one else wanted the job.
The nonpartisan Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia was tasked with replacing Willis after she was disqualified over an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she’d chosen to lead the case. The organization’s executive director, Pete Skandalakis, said Friday that he would take the case on himself.
“Several prosecutors were contacted and, while all were respectful and professional, each declined the appointment,” Skandalakis said in an emailed statement.
Legal action against Trump is unlikely to proceed while he is president. However, 14 other defendants still face charges, among them former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani as well as former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
Trump earlier this week announced pardons for people accused of backing his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election — including those charged in Georgia — but Skandalakis has said that has no bearing on these state charges.
After the Georgia Supreme Court in September declined to hear Willis’ appeal of her disqualification, it fell to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council to find a new prosecutor. Skandalakis can continue to follow Willis’ vision for the prosecution, decide to pursue only some charges or dismiss the case altogether.
He said he could have let the deadline pass or told the court no prosecutor was available, which would have led to the case’s dismissal, but he decided that wasn’t “the right course of action.”
“The public has a legitimate interest in the outcome of this case,” he wrote. “Accordingly, it is important that someone make an informed and transparent determination about how best to proceed.”
Skandalakis said Willis’ office delivered 101 boxes of documents on Oct. 29 and an eight-terabyte hard drive with the full investigative file on Nov. 6. Although he hasn’t completed his review, he took on the case so he can finish assessing it and decide what to do next.
Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in Georgia, said he is confident that “fair and impartial review” will lead to a dismissal of the case against his client.
“This politically charged prosecution has to come to an end,” he said in an email.
Allyn Stockton, an attorney for Giuliani, called Skandalakis’ decision an “interesting twist,” but added, “everything I know about Mr. Skandalakis is that he is a fair minded and honorable man who is void of any political agenda.”
A spokesperson for Willis declined to comment, deferring to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council.
Skandalakis, who has led the small, nonpartisan council since 2018, said in his filing that he will get no extra pay for the case, with Fulton County reimbursing expenses. He previously spent about 25 years as the elected Republican district attorney for the Coweta Judicial Circuit, southwest of Atlanta.
“I doubt anything will ever move forward with the president,” Georgia State University law professor Anthony Michael Kreis said, noting that Skandalakis’ appointment is temporary and charges can’t proceed against Trump while he’s in office.
As for the president’s co-defendants, Kreis said the council’s resources are scarce, which “may lead to a simplification of the case or plea deals.”
Willis announced the sprawling indictment against Trump and 18 others in August 2023, using the state’s anti-racketeering law to allege a wide-ranging conspiracy to illegally overturn Trump’s narrow loss to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia.
Defense attorneys sought Willis’ removal after one revealed in January 2024 that Willis had a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she had hired to lead the case. The defense attorneys alleged a conflict of interest and said Willis profited from the case when Wade used his earnings to pay for vacations the pair took.
During an extraordinary hearing the next month, Willis and Wade testified about their relationship’s intimate details, saying the romance didn’t begin until after Wade was hired and that they split the costs for vacations and other outings.
Judge Scott McAfee rebuked Willis for a “tremendous lapse in judgment” but found no disqualifying conflict of interest, ruling she could stay on the case if Wade resigned, which he did hours later.
Defense attorneys appealed, and the Georgia Court of Appeals removed Willis from the case in December 2024, citing an “appearance of impropriety.” The state Supreme Court declined to hear Willis’ appeal.
This is not the first time Skandalakis has been involved in this case. Even before Willis obtained an indictment, a judge barred her from seeking criminal charges against Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, one of 16 state Republicans who signed a certificate that Trump had won Georgia and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
A state senator in the wake of the election, Jones also sought a special legislative session to overturn Biden’s win.
As Willis investigated, Jones argued she had a conflict of interest because she hosted a fundraiser for his Democratic opponent in the lieutenant governor’s race. Judge Robert McBurney ruled in July 2022 that Willis’ actions created an “actual and untenable” conflict of interest.
Skandalakis appointed himself to handle that issue as well and ultimately chose not to pursue charges against Jones.
